Maryland toll increases get preliminary approval

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The Maryland Transportation Authority board gave preliminary approval Thursday to sweeping statewide toll increases that would more than triple the cost of some bridge crossings.

The plan would even out toll rates across the state, give E-Zpass users a 10 percent discount and raise rates for commuters and truckers. Most rate hikes would come in two phases on Oct. 1 this year and in July 2013.

The funds would be used to cover mounting maintenance costs on the state’s toll bridges, tunnels and highways and pay down billions in bond payments for projects now under construction.

“These investments have to be paid for, so frankly, we have no choice,” Transportation Secretary Beverley K. Swaim-Staley said.

The transportation authority expects to raise $77 million more in the coming fiscal year, $119 million the year after, and $251 million in fiscal 2014, when the toll hikes would be fully implemented.

The plan, passed on a unanimous voice vote by the authority board, is expected to be finalized in the late summer after a two-month public comment period and a series of nine public meetings across the state.

The proposed toll increases have already drawn strong criticism.

State Sen. E.J. Pipkin, the Republican minority whip from the Upper Shore, called it “completely out of touch with the struggles of working families today, who are dealing with rising gas prices and now are faced with 300 percent toll increases.”

The top Senate Republican, Nancy Jacobs, R-Cecil and Harford, is organizing grassroots opposition to toll hikes in the northeast corner of the state through Facebook.

There, the Interstate 95 toll in Perryville and the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge on Route 40 would climb from $5 to $6, then $8 for cars and passenger vehicles with two axles.

The William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bridge over the Chesapeake Bay, where the toll has been $2.50 since 1975, would rise to $5, then $8.

The cost of Baltimore harbor crossings, which are collected in both directions at the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Fort McHenry Tunnel and Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, would rise from $2 to $3 in October and to $4 in 2013.

The state last raised passenger vehicle tolls on the Baltimore harbor crossings, I-95 and the Hatem bridge in 2003.

Commuter rates would rise to the equivalent of $2.80 for a round trip at all toll locations.

Trucking companies are already worried by the proposal, said Louis Campion, president and CEO of the Maryland Motor Truck Association Inc.

The transportation authority agreed in its proposal to delay the first toll hikes for trucks and vehicles with three or more axles until January, but the plan would also lower discounts for frequent commercial toll users.

Truck tolls would top out at $60 for a round trip. The highest is now $38 on I-95.

“That’s going to have a rather devastating impact,” Campion said.

But authority board members said the pain of maintaining the aging infrastructure and expanding the system will have to be passed on to the drivers who use them.

Nearly half of the Inter-County Connector’s $2.6 billion cost falls on the authority, which will cover its $1.23 billion in bonds with future toll revenues.

The authority slashed the Baltimore toll lanes project a year ago, reducing the length of the express lanes and number of interchanges to cut $500 million from the $1.4 billion price tag. The eight-mile express lanes from White Marsh Boulevard to Interstate 895 are expected to open in 2014.

“Suddenly, the bill has come due, and the bill is something like $2.7 billion in bonds that we’re legally obligated to pay debt service on,” said authority member Richard C. Mike Lewin.

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